On 20 Apr 2014, at 05:55, Samiya Illias wrote:
On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
It is explained: [Quran 2:219] They ask you about intoxicants and
games of chance. Say: In both of them there is a great sin and
means of profit for men, and their sin is greater than their
profit...
That is an authoritative argument. You must understand that this
is not a good point for the Quran, or that interpretation of the
Quran.
How can *you* be sure if the prophet did not misunderstood God?
The original Arabic words of the Quran have not suffered any change
over the centuries.
That might not necessarily be a good sign.
What do you mean?
I have less problem when religious text allow comments (like the
torah, or the buddhists and taoists).
In human matter, including their relation with the divine, I find
unanimity suspect.
They are not the words of the Prophet. He was only the messenger,
transmitting the revelation as received.
Asserting this might not add sense to me. I respect your belief, but
I will be vigilant about you respecting possible other beliefs.
Fair enough
Have you come across any human book which has about 6236 sentences,
and millions of people know it by heart completely, from beginning
till end?
You are not reassuring me, here.
Just pointing out a unique miracle that I know not of any other
book. I do not understand your comment.
In North Korea, it seems all kids have to know by heart the life of
the tyrant.
Knowing "by heart" is close to brainwashing. Again I would prefer that
the kids could resume it critically, and add personal comments.
Ideally, I would like the kids not even knowing the religion (or even
the political opinions) of their parents, and I would like them having
at school a broad view on all religion, and good course in logic and
argumentation.
In 99,9% of the case, people get the religion of their parents, and I
don't find this quite sane. I am aware it is a sort of obligatory
passage, and I give time to time.
This original manuscript is protected from human interpretation...
My question is: what if a young person tells you, "I don't want to
study by heart the Quran, I want to study by heart the Bhagavad-
Gita"? Will that person keep a decent life in your neighborhood?
The question is besides the point: can the Bhagavad-Gita or any
other book be memorized by heart, from beginning till end, word by
word, in the original language?
Yes, but I am not sure it is a quite good idea. Only theater and poem
should be learned by heart.
Do millions of people already know it by heart, so that the
authenticity of the original text can be verified by cross-checking
various sources?
Why is that authenticity needed in the first place? It looks more like
a quest of self-identity than a trust in god. It looks more like
crutches for the one who lack faith. Again, if it can help some
people, why not, but I don't believe in literal account of the divine.
The divine is subtle and the human hands can lead his soul astray.
Like you said, a good sacred text is a good intoxicant, and my
experience is that some plant might be less nocive, with respect to
open your mind to the authentic inconceiable freedom, to borrow an
expression to the Vimalakirti-Nirdesa.
There are many decent people on all communities and societies who
have different sets of beliefs and religions, as well as different
sects within the same religion. I have Hindu and Christian
neighbours, and that's fine.
That's very nice.
Saudi arabis just decided to make atheism illegal. Do we agree that
this should not be tolerated? I am not an atheist, but I consider
that each human can think for himself, as long as it does not impose
its idea by dishonest means or violence, threat, etc.
The word used for sin also means frustration; tiredness;
laziness. Thus, I gather, both mind and body eventually suffer
from the harmful effects of the intoxicant, and thus the
negatives far outweigh the benefits.
Initially, the believers were advised to pray when in a clear
state of mind, and not when under the influence of intoxicants: :
[Quran 4:43] O you who believe! do not go near prayer when you
are Intoxicated until you know (well) what you say,...
Gradually, they were exhorted to refrain from it altogether:
[Quran 5:90] O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling,
(dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an
abomination,- of Satan's handwork: eschew such (abomination),
that ye may prosper.
References:
[Quran 2:219]
http://www.searchtruth.com/chapter_display_all.php?chapter=2&from_verse=218&to_verse=220&mac=&translation_setting=1&show_yusufali=1&show_shakir=1&show_pickthal=1&show_mkhan=1&show_urdu=1
[Quran 4:43]
http://www.searchtruth.com/chapter_display_all.php?chapter=4&from_verse=42&to_verse=44&mac=&translation_setting=1&show_yusufali=1&show_shakir=1&show_pickthal=1&show_mkhan=1&show_urdu=1
[Quran 5:90]
http://www.searchtruth.com/chapter_display_all.php?chapter=5&from_verse=89&to_verse=92&mac=&translation_setting=1&show_yusufali=1&show_shakir=1&show_pickthal=1&show_mkhan=1&show_urdu=1
Conventional religion have a tradition of forbidding anything
which can lead to psychotropic experience, if not mystic
experience, because they have decided of what is truth, and
psychotropic experience are able to question it, and usually leads
to making the doubt greater.
In the religious matter, even more than in science, I think we
cannot let other people think for you.
Exactly! That is why we must not be under the influence of any
intoxicant so as to be able to think clearly!
Television is an intoxicant, and what about the literature on the
other religions? Are there intoxicants?
Is not some religion used as a form of intoxicant? Are there no
abuse?
Also, what if someone has a religion which favors some "intoxicant"
for their quest?
What about the bwiti religion, an african syncretism of animism and
christianity, in which the roots of the plant Tabernanthe iboga pays
a key role in the liturgy?
What about the traditions in South-America, where such syncretism
have been realized, and we know how much violence and force have
been used in that process, but some survived by renaming their gods
and goddesses with christian saints or entities, like the salvia
feminine presence (often felt by about 40% of the salvia consumers)
renamed "Virgin Mary" after christianisation?
Spiritual plants can be double edged, they can be used to enslave
you, and they can be used to liberate you, but eventually, what I
reject, is pressure on this, and misinformation.
In Pakistan, under law, hard drinks cannot be sold to Muslims, but
there are licensed liquor shops which sell liquor to non-Muslims.
It is nice to not impose such interdiction on everybody. But why can't
a Muslim not drink intoxicant? I can understand social reason, but not
the invocation of the divine, unless God told you this personally, but
then you have to keep that silent, and apply it to yourself, not to
others.
I can appreciate that Muslims don't drink alcohol, like I can
appreciate Jainists avoid killing animals, but the pressure on others
through making this into a religion rule, bring uneasiness in my mind.
In my religion, you can caricature the prophets, even God, and you
can burn the sacred text without blaspheming, but then you *do* a
genuine blasphem when you dare to talk in its name.
If I'm misguided, then you are right. However, I earnestly believe
that the Quran is God-sent and it helps us understand our purpose
here on Earth, and where we are headed.
I am all happy if you feel that way, as long as you accept that some
other people can feel differently and develop different ways to
dialog with the divine.
Do you accept that your daughter or your sun marry someone with
another religion? Do you accept that, when adult, they change of
religion?
If they choose to do so, of course I will not be happy, but their
life is their choice.
OK; not too bad :)
They are exposed to many cultures and people of various beliefs.
When young, my daughters went to a convent school. I myself had also
studied at that same school as did my mother before me. We had
Christian friends, Hindu friends and Muslim friends. We had
religious friends and not-so-religious friends. Now, my children
(two daughters and a son) are all studying in US and Canadian
universities, and are interacting with a much broader spectrum of
beliefs, faiths and cultures. I do not know how their thought and
personal beliefs will evolve. What I could do was that when they
were younger, during their school days, we used to sit together and
I used to read out the translation of a few verses of the Quran to
them. Cover to cover, this took a few years. Yet, I know that they
know the content of the Quran, and therefore, whenever they
encounter new thoughts and ideas, they have the Quranic message also
at the back of their minds, and can think objectively about it. May
God be with them. Amen.
That's cool.
You can only trust God to talk directly to the heart of the
people. You can't suggest any action or inaction in its name, as
it becomes the worst authoritative and manipulative argument.
There are just no human intermediate between you and God.
God is immanent and personal and needs no intermediary. However,
God has been kind enough to send guidance through human messengers,
who have lived and shown that it is possible for humans to follow
guidance and become all that God has created us to become
God might be kind enough to gives us many plants and many tools to
appreciate them in different ways.
In some religion, Satan has the power to fake admirably a human
messenger, so it is better to always be careful not trying to get to
the 100% public certainty, because that is insanity.
You can be certain in your heart, and taught by exemplar behaviors,
but you can't express the divine roots explicitly, without bringing
the authoritative argument, which is fatal in the long run.
Its authoritative for me, because I choose to be a Muslim.
Did you really? Are you sure?
To you, I only introduce it as a text worth studying. If you can
read up so many varied philosophical, theological and scientific
works, why not this as well? You don't have to believe it or take it
as an authoritative argument.
I read it in that spirit. Like I said in another post, I can relate
with many verses, but others are less clear, and then the behavior of
some radicals does suggest interpretation which seems not quite
peaceful. I am not at ease at all with Wahhabism and Salafism and some
shia branches, and more generally with anything like using secular
powers to constraints the religious attraction. There are current of
extremism. I don't identify Islam with them, of course, but they
exist, and is a problem for all good willing believers.
I like comparative theologies, and you know my Plotinus-Arithmetic
Lexicon which I use as some etalon for the comparison.
I believe that theology is the most fundamental inquiry, and that a
large part of it can be done in the usual 3p scientific way. Almost
by its proper nature, human theology cannot be entirely "scientific"
for the humans, and choices remain, like saying yes or no to this or
that shaman/doctor proposition(s).
That is what I'm proposing. You have scientific knowledge and an
appreciation of a broad spectrum of theology. I'm just asking you to
include the Quran in your list of theological readings, even if you
mean to disprove it scientifically. Isn't that how hypothesis,
theory, proof work? You're equipped to undertake this fundamental
inquiry with the objectivity, earnestness and sincerity it demands!
But you can't really disprove such text, if only because you don't
have to interpret them literally. They resonate or not with your
previous experiences, which in this case are hardly communicable. So
sometimes you will "judge" some "sacred texts" by the behavior of
those who relate to it. Like I said, I relate more with some verse,
than with others, and that is often the case with such texts. With
respect to comp, sufi are the closer, imo, but even that is complex to
judge, if only because they make some notions secret by fear of their
life, and some notions secret by "fear of their afterlife" and it is
not always clear which is which.
Bruno
Samiya
Bruno
Samiya
Bruno
Samiya
On Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 3:52 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 4/18/2014 7:13 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
What society thinks has nothing to do with it, because weak
correlation-based scientific evidence is used selectively to
create laws that were desired a priori by some interest group.
That implies some nefarious motive and corrupt use of data known
to be wrong. In fact there was no nefarious 'interest group'
that wanted to ban marijuana or to ban alcohol or to ban heroin.
All these bans were initiated by people who believed in the ill
effects of these substances for individuals and for society. In
many cases they had personal experience. That the bans may have
given rise to criminal activities to circumvent them, isn't to
the point of their origin.
Brent
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